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Season 1 |
| 1 :01x01 - The New Bowling Ball (Sep/20/1952) | | With Ralph eager to get to the lanes, he gets his new bowling ball stuck on his thumb. Ralph agonizes to get it off with the help of Alice and Ed, he soon realizes his thumb is now too swollen to bowl. That is until Alice reminds Ralph that he bowls with his other hand. | | | | | | |
| 3 :01x03 - Six Months To Live (Oct/04/1952) | | Ralph's letter from a doctor has him believing he has only six months to live. Alice later explains that the letter is from the vet and is intended for his mother in law's dog. | | | |
| 4 :01x04 - Lost Baby (Oct/11/1952) | | After findind an abandoned baby on his bus, Ralph gets a taste of fatherhood along with the "help" from Norton. | | | |
| 5 :01x05 - Quiz Show (Oct/18/1952) | | Ralph is enraged after appearing on a radio quiz show in which he believes Alice blew the big prize by giving a wrong answer. After further consideration her answer was correct and now they get a second chance but this time it's Ralph's turn to answer. | | | | | | |
| 7 :01x07 - The Cold (Nov/01/1952) | | Alice tells Ralph that she took out life insurance on him while he is suffering from a bad cold. After thinking that she hopes he dies just so she can collect, she tells him that she too has a policy making him once again put his foot in his mouth. | | | |
| 8 :01x08 - Pickles (Nov/08/1952) | | Ralph is ranting after spending a whole day and paycheck on groceries. One thing he questions is why she bought pickles, bringing a sudden notion that maybe Alice is pregnant. | | | |
| 9 :01x09 - Sprained Thumb (Nov/15/1952) | | A sprained thumb from a bus accident has Ralph whining and Alice going nuts. But a visit from the company doctor shows that he's fine but it's Alice who is sick. | | | |
| 10 :01x10 - Jellybeans (Nov/22/1952) | | A furniture store is having a guess how many jelly beans are in the jar contest complete with a $100 prize. As usual Ralph goes overboard and buys the exact same jar and fills it with jelly beans to try winning the prize. Not as easy as one would think while getting constantly interupted. He wins the first prize but gets an even bigger surprise. | | | | | | |
| 12 :01x12 - Honeymooners Christmas Party (Dec/20/1952) | | It's Christmas eve and the Kramdens are having a party. But Ralph is not so merry when Alice tells him to return the potato salad and get it from a different deli. While gone the Nortons show up along with other favorite characters from the Jackie Gleason Show such as Joe the bartender, Fenwick Babbit, the poor soul, Rudi the repairman and Reginald Van Gleason III. Also appearing is an old friend from Trixie's vaudeville days Frances Langford. Ralph returns angry as when he left escorted by a policeman who believes he was trying to break into the deli after breaking a window. | | | |
| 13 :01x13 - Alice Plays Cupid (Jan/17/1953) | | Ralph is bringing home George, the traffic manager, for supper. Alice decides to play cupid and invited Henrietta from the Ladies' Auxiliary. Ralph wants to score points with George because a bunch of drivers are being transferred to Staten Island and Ralph doesn't want to be one of them. Henrietta arrives and Ralph labels her a monster. She goes into the bathroom to freshen up and George arrives. Ralph tells him that Alice is playing matchmaker and throws in a few nasty remarks about Henrietta. George appreciates the gesture but tells Ralph that he recently became engaged. Ralph rips into Henrietta some more. Henrietta enters and a dumbfounded George introduces her as his fiancé. | | | |
| 14 :01x14 - Suspense (Jan/24/1953) | | Alice is in the bedroom rehearsing for a play with Trixie in which a woman plots to kill her husband. Ralph and Ed walk in and overhear them. Ralph thinks she wants to kill him. The Nortons leave and Ralph tells Alice that he overheard her in the bedroom. She thinks that Ralph knows she was rehearsing for the play, and is just against her acting. She catches on to what Ralph thinks when she puts a vitamin in his juice and he accuses her of trying to poison him. Alice "confesses" and says that if she can't kill him, she'll kill herself, and drinks the juice. Ralph is hysterical, thinking that he is about to lose Alice. Alice "recovers" and tells Ralph the truth. | | | |
| 15 :01x15 - Lost Job (Jan/31/1953) | | The Kramdens and Nortons planned a dinner date at the Royal Chinese Gardens. Alice finds a pink slip in Ralph's pay envelope. Ralph is angry and reminisces about his 12 years as a bus driver. Alice offers to hock her wedding ring and get a job. Ralph says she should live at her mother's house so he can go out of town to find a job. In walks Dutch, the guy who stuffs the pay envelopes at the bus company. He's ready to go bowling with Ralph but Ralph would rather go bowling on his head. Dutch explains to Ralph that he used the pink slip as scrap paper and if he turned it over, he would have seen the note about going bowling. | | | |
| 16 :01x16 - Anniversary Gift (Feb/21/1953) | | It's the Kramdens anniversary and Alice gave Ralph $25 to buy a suede coat that he wants. Ralph has bought Alice a box for hairpins made out of 2000 matches glued together. They decide to exchange gifts but before Ralph can give Alice hers, Trixie comes in and gives Alice the same gift. Not knowing what to do, Ralph tells Alice that her gift is going to be delivered. While Ralph and Norton try to figure out where to get money for another gift, a delivery man comes with a package for a neighbor, Mrs. O'Leary, and asks if he can leave it there since she is not home. Alice comes in and snatches the package from Ralph, thinking that it's her anniversary present. Alice opens the box and finds a dress. While she is trying it on, Mrs. O'Leary comes looking for her package, and sees Alice wearing her dress. She demands an explaination. To avoid a scene, Ralph pays the neighbor for the dress with the money that Alice him for the suede coat. | | | |
| 17 :01x17 - Income Tax (Mar/07/1953) | | Ralph is filling out his tax return but is going crazy because he doesn't know what he's doing. Finally, he figures out that he owes Uncle Sam $15. The only money Ralph has saved up is exactly $15 which he refuses to use for anything else but a new bowling ball. A neighborhood priest comes in asking for donations for the poor and shames Ralph into giving him the $15 he was saving. Ralph then does a speech of what a great country America is. | | | |
| 18 :01x18 - Alice's Aunt Ethel (Mar/14/1953) | | Alice's Aunt Ethel arrives for a short stay but, according to Ralph, she is packing more luggage than someone leaving for Africa. As always, Ralph gets the short end of the stick and has to sleep in the kitchen. Norton and Ralph try to figure out how to get rid of her and Ralph stages a phony backache - yelling and screaming in pain. Alice and Aunt Ethel come out of the bedroom to find out what happened and Ralph tells her that his back hurts and that he has to sleep on a comfortable bed to get better. Aunt Ethel was just about to leave for Cousin Mildred's but she decides to stay and help nurse Ralph back to health. She tells him that in order for his back to get better, he has to sleep on the hard kitchen floor, not a soft bed. | | | |
| 19 :01x19 - What's Her Name? (Mar/21/1953) | | The Kramdens and Nortons have just been to the movies. Alice tells Ralph that she wishes he would be more like Ronald Coleman. Ralph replies that he'd be more like Coleman if Alice was more like Lana Turner. Then Alice says that she liked the other actress in the movie better, but can't remember her name. Ralph can't remember her name either and now he can't sleep until he thinks of the name. All the noise keeps Ed awake and he comes down to see what's going on. He can't remember her name either so he leans out the window trying to read the sign on the theater. A cop comes to the door and tells Ralph that if the noise doesn't stop, he's going to wind up in front of a judge. That's it! says Ralph. | | | |
| 20 :01x20 - Lunchbox (Mar/28/1953) | | Ralph comes home from work complaining about the food that Alice packed him for lunch. He says the food was not only horrible but there also wasn't enough of it. Frankie, another bus driver, shows up and tells Ralph that their lunchboxes somehow got mixed up and that they ended up with each other's lunch. Frankie raves about the gourmet feast that Alice had packed. | | | |
| 21 :01x21 - Hot Tips (Apr/11/1953) | | Ralph, Alice, and Ed are going to the racetrack. When word gets out, a bunch of people ask Ralph to place bets for them. When word about the bets gets around the neighborhood, the police suspect Ralph of being a bookie. Ralph and Norton panic, and Norton tells Ralph to eat the list that he wrote the bets on. Alice tells the cop that the list will prove Ralph's innocence and Ralph discovers that he didn't eat the list after all. The cop is convinced and leaves. | | | |
| 22 :01x22 - Norton Moves In (Apr/25/1953) | | The Nortons have had their apartment painted and they can't stand the smell of paint. Trixie comes down at 3am and asks if they can stay down there for the night. Ralph ends up sleeping in the kitchen with Ed on a cot that collapses as soon as Ralph lays down. Norton then decides to smoke a cigarette and accidently drops the match under the covers. Ralph is burnt and then he brutally insults Norton and throws him and Trixie out. Alice reminds Ralph of all the favors that Norton has done for him. | | | |
| 23 :01x23 - Ralph's Diet (Apr/18/1953) | | Mrs. Raferty is throwing a surprise party for her husband and while Ralph isn't home, she asks Alice to hide the turkey and cake in her apartment. She asks the Kramdens to attend the party but Alice says no because Ralph is on a diet and all the food would be too tempting. The diet is driving Ralph crazy. For dinner, Alice made him a raw vegetable salad. He tries to get his mind off food, so he turns on the radio but hears a commercial for fried chicken and puts his fist through it. Alice leaves and Ralph discovers the cake and turkey that Alice hid in the bureau drawer. | | | |
| 24 :01x24 - Dinner Guest (May/02/1953) | | Ralph invited Freddie Muller and his wife over for dinner. Freddie is in charge of giving out the upcoming promotions at the bus company so Ralph is trying to make a pitch for himself. The only problem is that every time Ralph tries to speak to Freddie about the promotions, Alice interupts before Ralph can say anything. Alice turns on the radio and they all start dancing the mambo. Norton comes in and reminds Alice that Trixie was waiting for her to go to a club meeting that night. The Mullers go home and Ralph balls out Alice for not giving him a chance to speak about the promotion. Freddie comes back because his wife forgot her purse and, upon leaving, tells Ralph that all the other bus drivers invited him over only to talk about the promotions. | | | |
| 25 :01x25 - Manager of the Baseball Team (May/09/1953) | | Alice is worried because Ralph is late getting home from work. When he finally comes home, he's carrying gifts for Alice and Norton along with champagn. Ralph thinks he is getting promoted to manager of the bus company. Ralph goes out to buy cold cuts and beer. While he's out, a telegram arrives stating that Ralph has been appointed as manager of the company baseball team. | | | |
| 26 :01x26 - The Prowler (Jun/06/1953) | | A prowler has been spotted in the building. Alice is so scared that she can't sleep, so she makes Ralph stay up with her and barricade the door. Norton comes banging on the door and scares them. Trixie comes down to get Norton. Next thing you know, the prowler climbs in through the Kramden's window and hits Ralph on the head. Ralph gets knocked out and Alice screams. The police hear the screams and come in and arrest the prowler. | | | |
| 27 :01x27 - Guest Speaker (Jun/13/1953) | | Ralph got a message that he has to speak at the next Racoon. He has a fit because Alice took his uniform pants to the cleaners and he has nothing to wear. Ralph writes a speech and tries to memorize it but Alice and Trixie keep interupting him. George Williams, the head of the lodge, enters and gives Ralph a note saying that at the meeting he is to introduce Brother Williams. | | | | | | |
| 29 :01x29 - Glow Worm Cleaning (Jun/27/1953) | | Alice has been picked to appear in a magazine ad for Glow Worm sink cleaner. Ralph is against the idea until he thinks that he is going to be in the ad too. An executive from the ad agency tells Ralph that he's not the right type to portray Alice's husband in the ad. Ralph gets steamed but then the executive promises Ralph that he can be in a different ad. Ralph cools off, but only until he hears that he is going to portray someone fat, flabby, and forty. | | | |
Season 2 |
| 30 :02x01 - Hot Dog Stand (Oct/10/1953) |
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Ralph and Norton want to buy a hot-dog stand in New Jersey, but they need six hundred dollars first. The Kramdens have $158 in their bank account, but it's a joint account and Alice won't let Ralph use the money. Ralph is bitter over this because Alice has caused him to miss other opportunities in the past. It's the same story with Norton and Trixie, so the boys are forced to go first to friends and relatives for the money, and finally to a bank. Mr. Foster, the banker, refuses to lend Ralph and Norton the money, until Norton mentions that they were planning to work their regular jobs nights and run the hot-dog stand during the day. Foster is impressed with their dedication and approves the loan. Alice and Trixie help the boys get the stand ready for the grand opening, while Ralph and Norton practice a code that's supposed to help provide quick and efficient service. Things look rosy when a customer tells Ralph and Norton that a building is going up right down the road from the stand, but their bubble is burst when they learn that the building is going to be a Howard Johnson's restaurant. | | Guest Stars: George Petrie as Construction Worker | | | |
| 31 :02x02 - Two Tickets to the Fight (Oct/24/1953) | | Uncle George from Pittsburgh is in town and Alice has invited him to dinner. Ralph has other plans: He and Norton have front-row seats at the fights. Alice is especially fond of Uncle George because he's been generous with the Kramdens. Among other things, he once bought them a refrigerator that Ralph later sold. Ralph could care less. He says, "I'm not missing the best fight of the year!" Alice answers, "You try and walk out that door and you'll be in the best fight of the year! " Uncle George arrives before Ralph can get out of the house, so Ralph tries to get rid of him by faking a backache. Norton walks in on the middle of Ralph's act and is taken in by it too. | | | |
| 32 :02x03 - Halloween Party (Oct/31/1953) | | It's Halloween and the Kramdens and Nortons are going to a bus-company party. They're all in costume: Trixie's a sailor, Alice is an angel, Norton's dressed as Clara Bow, and Ralph's outfitted as a Zulu chief. Ralph hates his costume, though (a top hat, a sweat shirt, and a grass skirt pulled up to his chest), so he decides to rip up his tuxedo and go as an "elegant bum." Freddie Muller and his wife come to pick up the Nortons and the Kramdens and they're dressed to the teeth. Freddie explains that though the party's on Halloween, it's not a costume party--it's a formal dinner-dance to celebrate the boss's birthday. Since Ralph's tux is now in rags, he misses a chance to hobnob with the bigshots. | | | |
| 33 :02x04 - Champagne and Caviar (Nov/07/1953) | | Mr. Marshall is dropping in on the Kramdens, and Ralph, who desperately wants a promotion and a raise, is going to extremes to impress him--he buys champagne, caviar, and expensive cigars. Norton comes down and embarrasses Ralph in front of Marshall. Ralph finally gets rid of him by giving him money to take Trixie to the movies. Then Ralph gets poked in the eye by the Fickle Finger of Fate. The board of directors for the bus company has been pressuring Marshall to give his drivers a raise, but now that he sees how well Ralph lives on the $62 a week he already pays him, he wants to use Ralph and his gracious life style as proof that he already pays his drivers enough. | | | |
| 34 :02x05 - Letter to the Boss (Nov/14/1953) |
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Ralph comes home in a rage; after driving a bus for the Gotham Bus Company for nine years, he's been told to turn in his uniform. He is incensed, frustrated, and humiliated, and the loss of income has him bordering on panic--he actually suggests to Alice that they move in with her parents until he gets another job. Norton comes down to pick up Ralph to go bowling and, as only he can, he makes Ralph feel worse while trying to cheer him up. Ralph feels cheated and betrayed -- both by life and by J. J. Marshall, president of the bus company--so he decides to write Marshall a letter to tell him how he feels after being fired after nine years of loyal service. Norton writes what Ralph dictates. His opening line: "You dirty bum," delivered with such conviction by Ralph that it sounds as if he invented the insult for the occasion. After calling Marshall a miserable low-life and a few other things, he tells Norton to sign the letter "Respectfully yours, etc., etc." Ralph is too depressed to go bowling so he asks Norton to mail it on his way to the alley. Moments later Ralph finds out he hasn't been fired: he was told to turn in his uniform because he was getting a promotion. Ralph races out of the house to catch Norton before he mails the letter. Norton, meanwhile, asks a custodian at the bowling alley to mail the letter. Ralph arrives at the alley, but by the time he finds out what happened to the letter, it's too late--the custodian's disappeared and presumably dropped the letter in a mailbox outside the alley. Federal offense or not, Ralph is determined to retrieve the letter from the mailbox -- until a postman catches him and Norton trying to turn it over and shake out its contents. Ralph's only chance now is to intercept the letter before Mr. Marshall has a chance to read it. Marshall walks into his office just as Ralph is sorting through the mail and Ralph greets him with a friendly homina-homina. The first letter Marshall opens is Ralph's, and he begins reading it out loud to acquaint Ralph with the crank mail executives occasionally receive. Marshall is getting a kick out of the letter until he gets to the end. He doesn't mind the nasty remarks but he becomes infuriated when he thinks the author didn't have the courage to sign his name. | | Guest Stars: Robert Middleton (3) as J.J. Marshall | | | |
| 35 :02x06 - Finger Man (Nov/28/1953) | | Ralph spots Bullets Durgom, a wanted killer, on his bus and helps the police capture him. Ralph races home with the news, just a step ahead of the reporters who descend upon Chauncey Street for photos of the hero and a firsthand account of how he helped apprehend one of the country's meanest thugs. A police chief comes by to congratulate Ralph, and while he's there one of his men races in with the news that Bullets has escaped. Ralph is terrified, because Bullets has threatened to get him. The cops figure Bullets will head straight to Chauncey Street to carry out his threat, so they set a trap for him: two cops will wait in the Kramden's bedroom, ready to spring out when Ralph says "Bullets, it's you," when the killer enters the apartment. | | | |
| 36 :02x07 - Santa and the Bookies (Dec/12/1953) |
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Alice is knitting baby clothes to make some extra money for Christmas. When Norton comes down and asks Ralph if he can hide Trixie's Christmas present in the Kramdens' apartment, Ralph says yes and sticks the present in the bureau drawer -- where Alice has hidden the baby clothes. A moment later, when Norton tells Ralph that Trixie has made a doctor's appointment for Alice, Ralph is sure that Alice is pregnant. He decides he has to make some more money in a hurry so that his future son can go to college, so he answers a newspaper ad for a Santa Claus job. What Ralph doesn't know is that the guys who placed the ad are bookmakers and that they plan to use the Santa to collect bets. Ralph is hired and so is Norton -- as an elf. Ralph and Norton set up shop on the sidewalk, and bettors walk by and drop in their money and slips of paper with the names of the horses they want to bet. When a cop drops some money into the pot and Norton asks him where his slip is, Santa and his helper wind up in the slammer. Ralph is frantic. He explains to the cops that he was playing Santa Claus because he wanted to earn some extra money because his wife is pregnant, and that he thought he was collecting money for charity. Alice shows up at the jail, and when Ralph asks her to corroborate his story, he finds out he's not going to be a father after all. The cops think Ralph's a liar and want to throw the book at him. The boys finally convince the cops to bring them back to where they were collecting the money, and to set up a stakeout to catch the real bookies when they show up to pick up the loot and betting slips from Ralph. The cops nab the real bad guys and for a few seconds it looks as if Ralph may have a Merry Christmas after all. But only for a few seconds. While Alice, Norton, and Ralph--still dressed in his Santa costume--are waiting for a bus to take them home, a woman hands Ralph some change and another cop pinches him for soliciting money without a license. | | | |
| 37 :02x08 - Honeymooner's Christmas Party (Dec/19/1953) |
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It's Christmas Eve. Alice is decorating the tree and setting out holiday refreshments. Ralph comes home with potato salad, but Alice says it's the wrong potato salad. It came from DeVito's, which would have been the right place to go for lasagne, but the right potato salad would have come from Krauss'. Ralph can't believe that Alice is actually asking him to go out for different potato salad, and he's right. She's not asking him. She's telling him. He leaves. Trixie enters, and describes to Alice what Ed gave her for Christmas--a juice squeezer that looks like Napoleon and squirts juice out of its ear. Fenwick Babbitt (played by Jackie Gleason) comes by, to deliver ice and beer. After hauling the beer barrel all over the apartment and standing around with the block of ice, he discovers he's in the wrong apartment, and leaves. Ed enters, escorting Frances Langford. Frances used to know Trixie in vaudeville. She sings "Great Day" and "I Love Paris" for Alice, Ed, and Trixie, and dances with Ed. Then Joe the Bartender (played by Gleason) stops in. He says a poor soul down at the bar was the victim of a nasty practical joke by Fatso Fogarty, who told him he had "won" a diamond and then handed him a cheap rhinestone. What made the hoax particularly pathetic was that the poor soul, totally taken in, cherished his prize. Alice, moved by the tale, tells Joe to send the poor soul up, and she'll give him a real present. Joe leaves, taking Frances Langford with him. Now the Poor Soul (played by Gleason in pantomime) arrives. Alice offers him refreshments and a gift, probably the first gift anyone ever gave him. He touchingly returns the favor by giving her his "diamond," then leaves. The next visitor is Rudy the Repairman (also played by Gleason). Rudy is accompanied by his regular assistant, Whitey, whose chief trait is that he speaks unintelligibly. Rudy makes a pass at Alice and Trixie, destroys the television set, and departs. Alice tells Trixie that it doesn't really matter, since she just had the set on trial. Ed brings in little Eddie Hodges, who stands as high as the kitchen chair and sings "Walking My Baby Back Home" not much more intelligibly than Whitey spoke. Eddie goes, and--what do you think?--Reggie Van Gleason III (hmmm, that face...) shows up with a band and the June Taylor Dancers. Reggie has been throwing a party at Joe the Bartender's. Now he's come to bring joy upstairs. The band plays. The dancers dance. Reggie does his inimitable Reggie dance. Then he and his entourage file out. Alice realizes it's been a while since she saw Ralph. Ralph (played by... ) reappears, with a cop. Seems Ralph was knocking on the window of Kraus's, and was arrested for attempted break-in. Alice straightens things out. The cop leaves.Alice and Ralph exchange presents. | | Guest Stars: Frances Langford as Herself, Jerry Bergen as Whitey | | | |
| 38 :02x09 - New Year's Eve Party (Dec/26/1953) |
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It's the day before New Year's Eve, and Alice and Trixie want Ralph and Norton to take them out to celebrate the arrival of 1954. Ralph, who says he hates going out on New Year's Eve, anticipates that Alice is going to ask him to take her out, so he decides to- pick a fight with her so she'll be too mad at him to want to go anywhere. First he screams about dinner; but Alice doesn't retaliate because one of her New Year's resolutions is not to argue with Ralph. Ralph gropes for other things to get her riled, and when they fail he blurts out that he's not taking her out for New Year's Eve. Then they fight. In walk Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, who've come to retrieve a briefcase full of sheet music Alice found earlier that day in a telephone booth. They invite the Kramdens and the Nortons to be their guests New Year's Eve at the Statler Hotel, where the Dorsey Brothers band is playing. Suddenly Ralph is in a festive mood. Moments later Freddie Muller arrives with bad news: Ralph has to work New Year's Eve. The next day Ralph goes to see Mr. Marshall to ask for the night off. While he's there Marshall has a fit over six other drivers all trying to do the same thing. When Marshall says the only way a driver is going to get the night off is to be sick--really sick--Ralph begins to bellow "in pain" and Marshall tells him to go home. Ralph leaves and Marshall calls his secretary to confirm his reservations for that night--at the Statler. In the Statler lobby Ralph meets Marshall, who fires him for lying. Marshall's wife reminds him that he also lied--to her mother so they wouldn't have to spend New Year's Eve with her. Marshall forgives Ralph and rehires him, and the Kramdens, Nortons, and Marshalls usher in the New Year swinging to the music of the Dorseys. | | Guest Stars: Robert Middleton (3) as J.J. Marshall, Jimmy Dorsey as Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey as Tommy Dorsey | | | |
| 39 :02x10 - This is Your Life (Jan/16/1954) |
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Ralph has been chosen to appear on the This Is Your Life TV program, and Alice must meet secretly with Mr. Wilson, the show's producer, to discuss the arrangements. Ralph finds out about the meetings and thinks Alice is fooling around with another man. He thinks the best way to uncover Alice's lover's identity is to play detective at the pool room. He already knows that the mystery man likes Italian food and is going to California; when he finds out who the guy is, he'll invite him to the house, find a way to leave him and Alice alone together, and then barge back into the apartment to catch them red-handed. Phil Cuoco, the best man at Ralph and Alice's wedding, becomes the prime suspect when Ralph overhears him telling a friend that he's going to California, and when he tells Ralph that he's eaten at an Italian restaurant two days in a row. Ralph invites him to the apartment and then leaves him alone with Alice so he can spy on them from the fire escape. Phil leans over Alice as they are looking at old photographs and Ralph thinks they're cuddling. Phil leaves the apartment and Mr. Wilson shows up as Ralph is racing up to the roof and back down the stairs to the apartment. Ralph barges in and without looking at who he's hitting, belts Wilson--killing his spot on This Is Your Life. | | | |
| 40 :02x11 - Cottage for Sale (Jan/23/1954) | | Ralph and Norton have a secret that Norton can't wait to blab to the wives--he and Ralph are going to buy a cottage in the country. They want to spend nearly a thousand dollars for it, and Alice and Trixie are immediately against the idea. Ralph convinces Alice to go look at a model cottage, and she and Trixie fall in love with it--not knowing that they're looking at a model that costs more than twice as much as the one Ralph and Norton want to buy. Alice changes her mind and decides she'd love to own a summer cottage. The boys send the wives away so they can bargain with the salesman, a shady character who'd give a used-car salesman a good name by comparison. He tells Ralph and Norton he'll give them a "modified" version of the two-thousand-dollar cottage for $989, the price of the model they wanted originally. When the Kramdens and the Nortons arrive at Paradise Acres to spend their first night in their dream cottage, they discover they've been sold a nightmare instead. The wives are infuriated, and soon everyone is yelling at everyone else; Trixie blames Ralph for dragging Norton into another fiasco, but Alice jumps to Ralph's defense. The Kramdens storm out, and when they get home Ralph takes out a house-for-sale ad in the paper. A Mr. Wohlstetter answers the ad, and pays a thousand dollars for the cottage. Ralph and Norton think they've pulled a fast one--until they learn that a highway is going through Paradise Acres and that Wohlstetter is going to sell the cottage property to the developers for four thousand dollars. | | | |
| 41 :02x12 - Lawsuit (Mar/27/1954) |
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Ralph broke his leg in a bus accident and now he wants to break the bank at the bus company by suing it for ten thousand dollars. According to Ralph, the accident occurred because of company negligence: the windshield wipers on his bus didn't work and he smashed his bus into a tree because he couldn't see in the rain. Ralph doesn't care that suing the company may cost him his job because he has other plans anyway--when he gets the money from the lawsuit he's going to buy a grocery store in Jersey City. A claims adjuster from the bus company comes and offers Ralph back pay for the time he missed while recuperating and complete payment of his medical bills, but Ralph refuses the offer. Instead, he has Norton call a lawyer, who tells Norton that Ralph has a can't-lose case. The lawyer comes to the Kramden apartment, and while he's asking Ralph questions he learns for the first time that Ralph was the driver of the bus, not a passenger. He tells Ralph about a city ordinance that requires a bus driver to be sure that all the safety equipment on his bus is working properly before taking the bus out of the depot. Ralph has no case after all, and, after kicking the adjuster out of the apartment, maybe no job either. | | | |
| 42 :02x13 - The Next Champ (Apr/10/1954) |
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Ralph and Norton are at the poolroom, when in walks Dynamite Moran, a small-time boxer who's come to New York to make it big. He's had two fights and two quick knockouts, and when Ralph sees him punch a cigarette machine he decides he wants to manage the kid. Alice feels like KO-ing Ralph when she hears this scheme, but she's placated when Ralph says it won't cost him any money to manage Moran. Then he drops the bombshell: Moran is moving in with them. Ralph and Norton go to see Jack Philbin, a fight promoter and member of the Raccoon Lodge (and in real life the executive producer of the Jackie Gleason Show and The Honeymooners), to try to arrange a match. When Armstrong, another fight manager, tells Philbin he's heard Moran can punch, Philbin schedules a fight for Moran. Armstrong offers to buy Moran's contract from Ralph for five hundred dollars, but Ralph refuses. Armstrong drops by the Kramdens' one morning to watch Moran train, and while he's there a neighbor comes in to complain about the noise. Moran grabs him menacingly and the neighbor pops him on the chin, knocking Moran cold. | | | |
| 43 :02x14 - Stand In For Murder (Apr/17/1954) |
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A mob boss, who is a dead ringer for Ralph, is holed up in his apartment because a rival gang leader, Barney Hackett, wants to bump him off. Nick, one of his henchmen, takes a ride on Ralph's bus and gets the idea of somehow setting up Ralph to get knocked off in place of his boss. He offers Ralph a "job" as a top executive with an insurance company, as the pretext of getting Ralph to the boss's apartment so he can be set up. When Ralph tells Alice he's been offered a job as boss of the "eastern district" of an insurance company (whose name he doesn't even know), with a salary of six hundred dollars a week, a Park Avenue apartment, and a chauffeured limousine, she is--what else--skeptical. The next day Ralph reports to work on Park Avenue, while the mob boss moves to another hideout. Nick makes a deal with Hackett to bump off Ralph (Hackett, of course, isn't wise to the switch), but the assassination attempt fails, thanks to Norton's interference. Next, Nick sends Ralph to Hackett's headquarters, to "sell him insurance." When Ralph walks in, Hackett thinks it's his archenemy looking for a showdown. Ralph doesn't suspect a thing, and just as he's invited to step into the back room, a cop walks in and insists that Ralph move his car. When Ralph shows up at the apartment again, Nick decides they'll have to bump off Ralph themselves, and then dump his body in front of Hackett's joint. He mistakes his boss for Ralph, knocks him cold, and deposits him in the bedroom. Alice comes by to visit Ralph on his new job, and right behind her is the boss's girlfriend, who thinks Ralph is her boyfriend. As she's cuddling up to Ralph, Alice re-enters the room and sparks fly. Ralph goes into the bedroom and sees the mob boss out cold on the bed. He puts two and two together and realizes what's been going on. Alice calls the cops and Ralph's career as an insurance executive comes to a sudden end. | | | |
| 44 :02x15 - Move Uptown (Apr/24/1954) |
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The Kramdens leave Brooklyn for the Bronx?!? Yes, if Ralph has his way. His friend George and his wife are moving to Albany, and Ralph and Alice have a chance to rent their apartment, a spacious, nicely decorated place that looks like the Taj Mahal next to the Kramdens' flat. For only fifteen dollars a month more than they're paying at Chauncey Street, the Kramdens can experience comfort and luxury; but first they have to sublet their apartment. When a couple of prospective tenants wash out, Ralph decides to move out in the middle of the night. That doesn't work--Norton falls down the stairs carrying a load of pots and pans and Ralph's brother Charlie doesn't show up with the car--so Ralph tries to get kicked out of the apartment by making a racket and painting the apartment in crazy colors. The landlord of the building in the Bronx drops in to interview the Kramdens, and Ralph, who's never met the Chauncey Street landlord, thinks he's the landlord of his building. Ralph does his best to prove he's a troublemaker, and his landlord-to-be rips up the lease for the new apartment before Ralph realizes who he is. | | | |
| 45 :02x16 - The Man in the Blue Suit (May/01/1954) |
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Ralph wins $73.85 playing poker and hides the money in the pocket of an old suit so Alice won't find it. The next day, a man from the Help the Needy Society comes to the apartment looking for old clothes and newspapers. Alice gives him Ralph's old suit. When Ralph hears this he and Norton race down to the mission to retrieve the suit. They decide that if Ralph goes in and asks for the suit because his money is in the pocket, the society may check with Alice to verify the story. Instead, Norton makes up Ralph to look like a bum in need of new clothes. Ralph gets on the clothes line, but when he gets to the counter the man tells him he can't get clothes without a ticket. Then Ralph learns he can't get a ticket until he fills out some forms and is investigated by the society. He gives the clerk a nutty sob story, gets a ticket, and grabs the suit he thinks is his. It's not. He sees another guy about his size wearing a similar jacket and tries to pick a fight with him, hoping the guy will take off the jacket, giving Norton a chance to search the pockets. Instead, he and Norton get kicked out for being troublemakers. A moment later, in walks the guy who collected Ralph's suit from Alice. He looks it over and decides he'll keep it for himself. He finds the money in the pocket and heads back to Chauncey Street to return it to Alice. | | | |
| 46 :02x17 - Hair-Raising Tale (May/08/1954) |
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Two con men pull a scam on Ralph as he sits in the park eating his lunch. One poses as the inventor of a miracle hair restorer and the other as an unscrupulous businessman trying to buy the formula. The second man "gets rough" with the smaller one and Ralph intervenes and chases off the larger man. The "inventor," Prof. Steinhardt, tells Ralph about his hair restorer and lets Ralph talk him into selling him exclusive rights to sell the formula in New York. Ralph races home for the money, but Alice won't give it to him because of his dismal track record with guaranteed get-rich-quick schemes. Norton hears the whole fight and comes downstairs for a ringside seat. Ralph figures he can get three hundred dollars against his life-insurance policy, and invites Norton to become his partner for a two-hundred-dollar investment. Norton says no--he's still smarting from the beating he took on the shoe polish that glows in the dark. He finally gives in--before he came down Trixie bet him a quarter he would--and KramNor's Miracle Restorer is born. Steinhardt arrives with the formula and the ingredients and Ralph and Norton begin mixing a batch. Mr. Mitchell, traffic manager at the bus company, drops by to tell Ralph he has to take another driver's shift. Ralph tells Mitchell--who's half bald--about KramNor's, but Mitchell is skeptical. Ralph offers him a free treatment that not only doesn't grow hair but kills most of what Mitchell had. Ralph and Norton go to the park to try to pull the scam on another sucker. | | | |
| 47 :02x18 - Boxtop Kid (May/22/1954) |
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Alice's sister, Helen, and her husband, Frank, have won a cruise to Europe, and Ralph and Alice go to see them off at the dock. Ralph is jealous and he acts it. The next day he buys every product that's running a contest--$23.50 worth of dog food, cereal, cake mix, detergent, etc.--so he can win something too. Ralph eventually wins two contests: his prizes are a dog from the Happy Hound dog food people and a trip to Europe from Slim-o Bread. (Ralph's winning slogan: "Slim-O Bread adds to the taste and takes away from the waist.") When Ralph reads the telegram that notifies him about winning the trip, he discovers that the company wants to use before-and-after photos of him; Ralph said on his entry blank that he used to be a fatty but that his weight dropped down to 170 pounds after he began eating Slim-O. Ralph cons Norton into posing as him, and stuffs him with a pillow and takes his picture, which is to pass as the "before" Ralph. The ruse works--until Mrs. Manicotti comes in and refers to Ralph as Mr. Kramden. When the Slim-O man questions her, she tells him that Ralph is Kramden. Ralph is also fat, so he doesn't get to go to Europe. | | | |
| 48 :02x19 - Two Men on a Horse (May/29/1954) |
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Ralph's been elected treasurer of the Raccoon Lodge--he won by promising to spend the Lodge's budget surplus on beer and hot dogs. On the way home from the lodge he loses the two hundred dollars he's supposed to deposit in the Raccoons bank account. The next day he meets Norton at Jerry's Lunch Room to figure out where he can get another two hundred dollars. He tries to make some of it back by playing pinball against a guy in the lunch room. Ralph rolls up a score that Norton says will put him in the Pinball Hall of Fame, but his opponent tops it with his first ball. As Ralph and Norton are leaving, Jerry gets a telephone call--a hot tip on Cigar Box, a horse running that afternoon at the track. Jerry closes the lunch room to go to the track, and Ralph figures the horse must be a sure thing. He and Norton go to the track, hoping to win two hundred dollars. When the odds on Cigar Box start dropping, Ralph goes around dissuading people from betting on the horse. He and Norton split up, and Norton tells one man who's going to bet Cigar Box that he's the horse's owner, and that the horse can't win. Norton tells him to bet Happy Feet instead. Ralph bumps into the same man, who tells Ralph Cigar Box won't win because his owner just told him the horse is in the race only for a workout. Ralph bets Happy Feet instead, and then finds out Cigar Box's "owner" is Norton. Ralph rips up his ticket in despair. The race begins and Cigar Box leads the pack by a mile. | | | |
| 49 :02x20 - Goodbye Aunt Ethel (Jun/05/1954) |
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This is an expanded version of the March 1953 skit "Alice's Aunt Ethel." In this episode, Ralph comes home from work in a fabulous mood--which lasts only until Alice tells him Aunt Ethel is coming for a visit. The middle sequence of this episode--in which Ralph is trying to sleep on a cot in the kitchen while Alice makes coffee for Aunt Ethel--is "Alice's Aunt Ethel" all over again. When Ralph's scheme to get rid of Aunt Ethel by faking a bad back fails, he concludes that the only way to get rid of her for good is to many her off to somebody. Freddie Zimmerman, the butcher from Freitag's Meat Market, is chosen as the pigeon and invited over for dinner. Ralph goes all out to ensure that the evening is a success. He sends Aunt Ethel to the beauty parlor and buys her a corsage; he borrows the Nortons' love seat and his pal George's record player and records; he sprays the apartment with perfume, and buys four pounds of chopped meat from Freddie to make sure he's in a good mood. Aunt Ethel and Freddie discover they have something in common: she used to stuff sausages for a living when she lived in Ohio, and Freddie gets his meat from the same meat packer. Three weeks later they're married and Ralph thinks he's finally rid of Aunt Ethel. Not so fast: Freddie lives at the YMCA, and he and Ethel can't move in there, so they barge in on the Kramdens--just until they can find their own place. | | | |
| 50 :02x21 - Vacation/Fred's Landing (Jun/19/1954) | | The Kramdens and the Nortons are going on vacation together. The girls think they're going to Atlantic City, but the boys decide they want to go fishing at Fred's Landing. They get their way--and wind up having to push their borrowed car halfway to Fred's. After two days at Fred's, Alice and Trixie are worn out cooking, cleaning, toting water, collecting firewood. They decide to annoy the boys enough to get them to want to leave. They don't know that Ralph and Norton are miserable too. Ralph decides he'll dress up in a bear suit to scare the girls into begging him and Norton to go home, so the boys can leave and save face at the same time. Ralph returns with the suit, to find Norton face to face with a real bear. | | | |
Season 3 |
| 51 :03x01 - Ralph's Sweet Tooth (Sep/25/1954) | | Ralph is getting paid one hundred dollars to be in a commercial for Choosy Chew Candy. He asks Norton to help him rehearse the lines he must memorize but ends up knowing less about what he has to say that when they first started. Later, Ralph gets a toothache. After unsuccessfully trying different remedies suggested by Alice and Norton, he finally goes to Dr. Durgom, the family dentist. The dentist wants to pull Ralph's tooth but when he steps out to answer a phone call, Ralph grabs a bottle of liquid pain killer and scrams. What Ralph doesn't know is that in order for it to work it must be refrigerated. Just before going on the air for the commercial, Ralph applies the pain killer. During the commercial he bites into the candy and starts rampaging around the set and through the Choosy Chew orchestra in excruciating pain. | | | |
| 52 :03x02 - Game Called on Account of Marriage (Oct/02/1954) | | Ralph doesn't want to go to Alice's sister Sally's wedding because he has tickets to the world series. He and Alice battle it out with no resolution. Ralph meets Norton for lunch and they come up with a surefire scheme. They're going to trick Stanley, the groom, into eloping right away. That night Ralph and Norton show up at Sally's house with a ladder but Stanley is afraid of heights, so Ralph is stuck going up the ladder to get Sally's luggage. Sally and Stanley have a fight and call the whole thing off. Ralph climbs back up the ladder and starts tossing the luggage back through the window. Stanley and Sally return to announce they're going to elope after all, and off they go. As Ralph is taking down the ladder, a cop shows up and demands an explanation. Ralph tells him the whole story, and then the cop gives him the bad news: earlier in the day the New York Giants clinched the Series by winning four straight games. | | | |
| 53 :03x03 - Love Letter (Oct/16/1954) | | Alice finds a love letter in the cookbook that she has borrowed from Trixie. Upon examination, Trixie reveals that the letter was written by Ed. Ralph also reads the letter -- and immediately assumes that Alice has a secret lover. Anxious to determine the identity of "the other man," Ralph and Ed head down to the office of a handwriting analyst. Inevitably, she concludes that Ed was the author of the romantic note. | | | |
| 54 :03x04 - The People's Choice (Oct/23/1954) | | This episode is an expanded version of "Finger Man" and its first dozen minutes are the earlier skit done again. The new material picks up when Morgan and Weaver, from a corrupt local political party, visit Ralph and ask him to run for assemblyman on their ticket. Ralph is so impressed with himself that the pair has him believe that he can be President some day. Alice suspects that the two men want Ralph to be their stooge, but Ralph interprets her skepticism as a lack of faith in him. The Kramdens and Nortons take to the streets to campaign. Morgan and Weaver see this and call Ralph an idiot for exposing himself to the public, and it begins to dawn on Ralph that maybe Alice is right. At a rally the next night, instead of giving the speech Morgan and Weaver prepared for him, Ralph tells his supporters that he is not qualified to run for office and that they should vote for his opponent. | | | |
| 55 :03x05 - Battle of the Sexes (Nov/13/1954) |
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Ralph and Ed are at the pool hall, in a scene that was later adapted for "The Bensonhurst Bomber". Trixie phones Norton and tells him to get home -- her mother has come for a visit. This is Ralph's cue to give Norton a "King of the Castle" speech, and to tutor him on what to tell Trixie when he returns home -- after he and Ralph have finished playing pool. Norton is so inspired that he says Ralph's words should be recorded and played at every wedding instead of "Here Comes the Bride." Later, Trixie comes down to the Kramdens' apartment in tears -- Norton's been playing king and she doesn't want to spend the night with him. Alice wakes up Ralph, and when he gives her his "king" speech, she gets suspicious. When Norton comes down and begins bullying Trixie again, it confirms to Alice that Norton has become Ralph's understudy. Alice and Trixie walk out together, leaving Ralph and Norton as roommates in the Kramdens' apartment . A week later the apartment looks like Yucca Flats after the blast and Norton is complaining about Ralph's cooking. (He tells Ralph that he's become so weak from the bad food that he had to wear an inner tube in the sewer to keep from drowning.) Ralph's too proud to apologize to Alice, so he and Norton scheme to get the wives to make the first move. They fake having a party in the apartment, but while Ralph is yelling jovial remarks out the window so Alice and Trixie can hear him upstairs, Alice walks in and the party crash-lands. After three more schemes fail -- the sympathy routine, the threat to cut off Alice's household money, and the "I'm leaving forever" warning -- the boys break down and apologize. The girls open their arms to welcome them back but Ralph and Norton sweep right past them and dive at the table full of food Trixie has prepared for her own and Alice's dinner. | | | |
| 56 :03x06 - Halloween Party For The Boss (Oct/30/1954) | | The Kramdens and Nortons don elaborate costumes in anticipation of attending a Halloween party. No sooner has Ralph ripped up his tuxedo, intending to create an "elegant bum" costume, than he learns that the party is actually a birthday party for his boss -- and formal attire is mandatory. | | | |
| 57 :03x07 - Teamwork Beat the Clock (Nov/20/1954) | | Ralph and Alice are contestants on Beat the Clock. Alice's sister is scheduled to have a baby, and her husband is away on business. While Alice stays behind with her, Ed replaces Alice on the game show. | | Guest Stars: Bud Collyer as Himself | | | |
| 58 :03x08 - Brother-in-Law (Nov/27/1954) | | Alice's brother Frank is coming for dinner. Ralph has hated Frank ever since he cheated him out of a promotion when they both worked for the WPA. According to Ralph, Frank's "a moocher, a swindler, and a bum!" Frank antagonizes Ralph during dinner, and then tries to put the finger on him and Alice for five hundred dollars to buy a hotel in New Jersey that's located right where a new highway is supposed to be built. The Kramdens don't give him the money -- Alice agrees with Ralph this time -- but Ralph decides to steal Frank's idea and buy the hotel with the Nortons. Ralph becomes manager by winning a coin toss. Norton is the bellhop, Alice the cook, and Trixie the chambermaid. Norton says the hotel looks like "the set for a Bela Lugosi picture," but miraculously they get it cleaned up. Their first guest is a surveyor with the highway-construction crew -- who tells Ralph and Norton that the highway isn't going to pass right in front of the hotel as they thought, but over it. | | | |
| 59 :03x09 - Songwriters (Dec/11/1954) |
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Ralph's gonna get rich by writing hit songs. He gets the idea when he learns that the Raccoon Lodge has contracted to pay a professional songwriter one hundred dollars to write a lodge theme song -- and that the hundred dollars is peanuts compared with what the songwriter makes writing pop songs. Ralph's first step to stardom is to recruit Norton to play the piano and write the music to Ralph's lyrics. Ralph keeps Norton up all night trying to write songs, while waging running battles with Alice and McGarrity (a.k.a. Garrity). After failing at writing love songs, lullabies, and holiday songs, they hit on a novelty song and take it to a publisher. Ralph is crushed when the publisher says he loves the melody but hates the words, and that he wants to bring in a professional songwriter to write lyrics to Norton's music. In a rare gesture of unselfishness Ralph steps aside for Norton's sake. But Norton values his friendship with Ralph more than a musical career, and unbeknownst to Ralph, takes their song to another publisher, who loves it so much he has it recorded | | | |
| 60 :03x10 - Kramden vs. Norton (Jan/05/1955) |
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It's Norton's birthday, the Kramdens are treating for a night out, and Ralph's looking to get off cheaply. He doesn't want the Nortons to think he's cheap, though, so he tells Alice to suggest that they go to the movies (instead of to the Kit Kat Club, where Norton took Ralph on his birthday). It's been a banner day for Norton -- he's gotten a new vest from Trixie, a hand-carved mahogany surf board from the boys in the sewer, and a monogrammed scarf from the Kramdens -- and going to the movies is the icing on Norton's cake when he has the winning ticket in a drawing for a television set. Ralph claims the set is his because he paid for the tickets, and a feud erupts. Ralph dismantles the set so no one can watch it, and he and Norton stop speaking to each other; they write notes instead. Things get so bad that the boys are reduced to playing pool with their wives. A bitter confrontation at the pool hall spills over into night court, where during Trixie and Alice's testimony, we learn that Trixie's real name is Thelma and that the Kramdens and the Nortons met when Ed invited the Kramdens out to dinner the day they moved in at 328 Chauncey Street. As Alice relates to the judge the history of Ralph and Norton's friendship, the boys break down in tears and each forsakes his claim to the TV in exchange for the other's friendship. | | | |
| 61 :03x11 - A Promotion (Jan/22/1955) |
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The heat's off at Chauncey Street and the apartment's an icebox, but Ralph doesn't even notice -- he's just been promoted to first assistant cashier to the assistant cashier. What a life, he muses -- he can dress up every day like it's Sunday, and take his lunch to work in a briefcase. Day one on the new job Ralph is working late trying to find a three-dollar discrepancy in the day's accounting. Norton comes to visit and Ralph accidentally closes and locks the safe before he puts away the day's receipts. He takes the money home in a paper bag, with the intention of returning it to the safe early the next morning when the safe's time lock shuts off. At home, with Norton's help, the bag gets mixed up with some grocery bags and Alice discovers the money. Instead of thinking Ralph's a dope, as he thought she would, she is sympathetic. That night, at the bus company, the safe is blown open by crooks. The next morning, when Ralph arrives at work with the money, he finds a room full of bus-company executives and cops, who are convinced Ralph's the thief. As Ralph and his "accomplice," Norton, are being taken to jail, a call comes in -- the real crooks have been apprehended. Ralph's relieved, but Norton's upset at Mr. Marshall for thinking Ralph would rob the company. He tells Marshall how dedicated Ralph is and enumerates Ralph's ideas for saving the company money. Marshall decides Ralph's too valuable to the company to be sitting at a desk, so he tells Ralph he's going back to driving a bus -- and into training as assistant bus dispatcher. | | | |
| 62 :03x12 - The Hypnotist (Jan/29/1955) |
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The International Order of Loyal Raccoons are planning a trip to Chicago for their annual convention, and to help get themselves in the mood for the festive occasion they've invited the Great Fatchamara -- "the world's greatest hypnotist," and a Raccoon from Bayonne to the lodge to entertain them. He hypnotizes Ralph and Norton and tells Ralph he is Norton, and Norton, Ralph. He tells them they're at a bowling alley, and each acts as if he's the other: "Ralph" is angry because "Norton" wants to bowl first; "Norton" rolls a strike and finishes off his turn with a Nortonesque flourish of the arms. Before Fatchamara brings them out of their trances, he gives them a posthypnotic suggestion: whenever they're seated and hear the name Chicago, they'll think they're sitting on a bed of red-hot coals. The convention ought to be a riot -- Ralph's bringing a toy gun, a trick glass, chattering teeth, an electric prod, and paper bags to drop out the hotel window--but he may not get there because he hasn't saved any money. He tries the flattery routine to coax some money out of Alice, but she's having none of it--she's saving the money for furniture. Then Ralph has one of his all-time-great brainstorms: we'll get the Great Fatchamara to hypnotize Alice so she'll tell Ralph where she's hidden the money. The next day Alice is in the candy store, making a telephone call, and in walk Ralph and Norton to call Fatchamara. They don't know it's Alice in the telephone booth, and while they're waiting for her to hang up they discuss Ralph's scheme. Alice overhears the whole thing. When Fatchamara shows up at the Kramdens, Alice is ready for him and fakes being hypnotized. She shows Ralph where she's hidden the money, but he decides to play it smart and take it just before he's ready to leave for Chicago so Alice won't know it's missing until too late. On the train to the convention, the Raccoons are filling the car with belly laughs as Ralph relates the whole story. When the waiter brings the check for the Raccoons' drinks, big-shot Ralph offers to pay. He opens the money box, but instead of finding the cash he finds a note -- from Alice. | | | |
| 63 :03x13 - Cupid (Feb/05/1955) |
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Ralph and Norton run into Herman Gruber, a boyhood friend of Ralph's from P.S. 73. Herman isn't married yet, so Ralph decides to find him a girl. He calls Evelyn Fensterblau and asks her what she's doing the following night, and she hangs up on him. He has better luck with Charlotte Stadtelman from the bus company, who agrees to date Herman. The next day at the beauty parlor Trixie hears the latest gossip -- Ralph called Evelyn and asked her for a date! Trixie tells Alice, and when Alice confronts Ralph with the story he explains to Alice that he was calling Evelyn for Herman Gruber. Alice doesn't believe him, so Ralph decides to go to Charlotte's apartment to bring her and Herman home with him to explain things to Alice. While Ralph is there, Charlotte's jealous ex-boyfriend shows up and Ralph has to bluff his way out of a broken head. Back at Chauncey Street, Alice is donating some clothes to charity and transporting them in a suitcase. When Norton sees her carrying the suitcase he thinks she's walking out on Ralph. When Ralph returns from Charlotte's, Norton tells him Alice has left. Charlotte shows up to explain everything to Alice, whom Norton spots coming up the block. Ralph and Norton think Alice will never understand Charlotte's being in the apartment, so they try to sneak her onto the fire escape. Alice catches them and thinks it's proof that Ralph is seeing another woman | | Guest Stars: Ned Glass as Herman Gruber | | | |
| 64 :03x14 - A Little Man Who Wasn't There (Feb/12/1955) |
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Some passengers on Ralph's bus who have been offended by him have complained to the bus company, so Ralph's boss orders him to see the company psychiatrist. Ralph thinks that the boss thinks he's crazy, and that this is the end of his career as a bus driver. Ralph takes Norton with him to the psychiatrist's office and within minutes they're fighting. The doctor enters the room and finds Norton standing on a desk and Ralph threatening to beat him up. The doctor sends Norton out of the room and gives Ralph his diagnosis: Norton aggravates him, so he should avoid seeing him or risk a nervous breakdown. Ralph can't tell Norton face to face that their friendship's over, so he writes him a letter. Norton accidentally sees the letter and thinks it's a suicide note. He decides to stick to Ralph like glue, to prevent him from killing himself. After two days of Norton's tailing him, Ralph thinks he's going nuts. One second he looks,, and Norton's there; a second later he's gone. Ralph thinks he's imagining seeing Norton, so Alice sends for the doctor. As the doctor is prescribing a strong nerve tonic for Ralph, Norton enters and explains that he's been following Ralph to make sure he won' t kill himself. | | | |
| 65 :03x15 - Hero (Feb/19/1955) |
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Tommy, a new kid in the building, idolizes Ralph. Ralph thinks he's a pest--until Tommy tells him he saw him playing stickball, and that he wants to grow up to be a great athlete like Ralph is. The way to Ralph's heart is not only through his stomach but through his ego, and Ralph warms up to the kid in a flash. Soon Ralph is telling Tommy he fought for the Golden Cloves championship (The Wild Bull of Bensonhurst, they called him), that he almost pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers, that he could lift four hundred pounds when he was seventeen, that he had a glorious football career (Snakehips Kramden was his name), and that he was an Eagle Scout. Tommy writes a school composition about Ralph, and Tommy's teacher asks Ralph to come to school to talk about it. She reads the composition to Ralph and asks him to tell Tommy to stop inventing such wild stories. In the composition Tommy says he's going to invite Ralph to a father-and-son Boy Scout competition, so Ralph rushes home to learn some of the events -- tying knots, blowing a bugle, leaf identification, and tracking and stalking. Ralph fails dismally at each thing he tries, so the next night he fakes having a sprained arm so he won't have to compete and be embarrassed. Tommy arrives in his Boy Scout uniform, and Ralph tells him he can't participate because of his arm. Then Ralph's conscience takes over and he confesses that he's a fake. Tommy says he doesn't care, because they're pals and because Ralph was going to the Scout meeting because he wanted to, and not out of obligation like many of the boys' fathers were. | | | |
| 66 :03x16 - The Great Jewel Robbery (Feb/25/1955) |
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Ralph is collecting money from all the bus drivers for a wedding present for the boss's daughter. He hopes the gift will mean a raise for the drivers--and maybe a promotion for himself. It's Alice's birthday, and her mother pays a visit. As soon as Ralph comes home, a battle royal between him and Mrs. Gibson begins. A delivery boy from Steinhardt's jewelry store arrives with a package that contains a watch Ralph bought for the boss's daughter. Alice thinks it's her birthday gift and is ecstatic. She praises Ralph up and down to her mother, and Ralph, who forgot it was Alice's birthday, is too ashamed to tell the truth. Now Ralph has to figure out how to get the watch back without letting Alice know it isn't hers. He and Norton come up with scheme: Norton will get one of his pals to pose as a burglar, hold up the Kramdens, and take the watch. While Ralph and Norton are devising their plan, a real crook overhears them and decides to show up at the Kramdens' before Norton's friend gets there. When he shows up, Ralph thinks he's Norton's friend and practically hands him the watch. While the crook's examining the goods, Alice plunks him with a frying pan and knocks him cold. She rushes out to call the cops, but Ralph revives him and sends him on his way, with some extra loot to boot. A moment later Norton's buddy arrives and Ralph realizes what he's done. The cops catch the crook and recover the watch, forcing Ralph to tell Alice that the watch isn't hers. Alice is heartbroken, but she returns the watch. Now Ralph must decide between giving the watch to the boss's daughter as planned, or giving the watch back to Alice and being in debt to the guys at the depot. | | | |
| 67 :03x17 - Peacemaker (Mar/05/1955) |
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Ralph is trying to sleep because he has to get up early for work. Norton, trying to do a good deed, accidentally sets off Ralph's alarm clock. Ralph stumbles out of the bedroom half dressed and half asleep and heads out the door for work--six hours early. When he gets out to the street he realizes what has happened, and Norton becomes persona non grata in the Kramden household. Ralph gets back to sleep and Norton goes home--only to get into a no-holds-barred brawl with Trixie. Ralph wakes up again, and no sooner does Alice get him back in bed when in walks Trixie, sobbing because Norton has packed his things and left her. Ralph gets up again and goes out to find Norton. He catches up with him at the ice- cream parlor, where Norton is drowning his sorrows in malteds. Ralph pleads with Norton to go home, but Norton refuses. He claims he doesn't love Trixie any more--until Ralph reminds him about some of the ''gourmet'' meals Trixie cooks for him. Norton goes home, and Round Two begins. Norton winds up on a cot in the Kramdens' apartment, but Ralph still can't get to sleep. He drags Norton upstairs to apologize, but Trixie won't accept the apology. Round Three. Ralph sends Norton out of the apartment so he can give Trixie a speech about how much Norton really loves her. Then it comes out that Norton and Trixie were fighting over Ralph--Norton was criticizing him and Trixie w8s defending him. Ralph wants to kill Norton, but he's too tired. | | | |
| 68 :03x18 - The Adoption (Mar/26/1955) |
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The Kramdens want to adopt a baby. "We wanted this more than anything in the world," says Ralph. The adoption agency tells Alice her application is being considered, but that a staff worker must come to the apartment to look it over before final approval is granted. A pall falls over the Kramdens because they think once the worker sees their crummy apartment they'll be denied a child. They borrow furniture--a TV set, drapes, refrigerator, stove, new table and chairs, couch, etc.--to make the apartment look presentable. Ralph and Alice are as nervous as two kids on their first date as they wait for Miss Lawrence from the agency to arrive. As she is interviewing the Kramdens, Ralph almost blows everything when he notes with amazement that a light goes on in the refrigerator when the door is opened. But no amount of homina-hominas can keep the charade going when Frank, the iceman, comes in with the Kramdens' daily delivery for the icebox. Ralph and Alice finally admit they redecorated the apartment with borrowed goods to make an impression. We're not cheating to get a child, Ralph says desperately, we're fighting to get one. Miss Lawrence says the agency is not as concerned with furnishings as it is with finding couples who really want children, and that she's never met a couple who want a child more than the Kramdens. Approved! The Nortons accompany the Kramdens to the hospital to pick up the baby. When the child is wheeled out Ralph's joy turns to anger when the doctor says the baby is a girl. Ralph insists that he get a boy, and the doctor goes off to try to arrange it. Alice, near tears, leaves the room, leaving Ralph alone with the baby. Ralph apologizes to the baby for not wanting to bring her home. As the infant weaves her magic on Ralph, his arguments for not wanting a girl become less convincing. By the time the doctor returns with the news that the Kramdens can get a boy, Ralph turns on him like a lion defending his cub--Ralph wants the girl. "Ralphina" is a Kramden. A week later, the doctor visits with somber news: the child's natural mother wants the baby back. | | | |
| 69 :03x19 - Stars over Flatbush (Apr/02/1955) |
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Norton has discovered astrology, and Ralph thinks he's nuts, especially when Norton tells him the stars say he shouldn't ask his boss, Mr. Malone, for the raise he planned to request that day. Norton also sees in the stars that Ralph will have an accident that day and will be rendered speechless. When a window falls on Ralph's hand and the pain is so great that he can't utter a sound, Ralph becomes hooked on the stars too. He doesn't ask for the raise, and Alice is furious when she learns the reason why. Ralph tells her the stars say he should ask for the raise Friday night at 11:30 P.M. Alice tries to explain to Ralph that he can't possibly be anywhere near his boss Friday night at that hour. As if appointed by destiny, in walks Freddie Muller with an invitation for the Kramdens to an engagement party he's giving for Mr. Malone, Friday night--from 9 P.M. to midnight. Next, Norton sees in Ralph's horoscope that he's going to have an encounter with a glamorous Aquarius. They figure that the party is the only place Ralph is likely to meet such a woman, so they decide to show up at Freddie's just before 11:30. At the party Ralph is edgy, and he nearly faints when an attractive blonde asks him for a match. He nearly has a heart attack a few minutes later when Mr. Malone's fiance, a cute blonde Aquarius, asks him to dance with her. At exactly 11:30 Ralph asks Mr. Malone for the raise. Malone turns him down, and then dresses him down for trying to take advantage of a social situation. | | | |
| 70 :03x20 - One Big Happy Family (Apr/09/1955) |
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Ralph and Norton are going nuts trying to do their taxes. They compare income and expenses, and when Ralph realizes that he and Norton between them are paying $90 a month in rent, he proposes that they pool their money and share an apartment. The Kramdens and the Nortons move to 23 Mockingbird Lane in Flushing, Queens, and the benefits of the move are immediately obvious: at Chauncey Street the view from Ralph's window was the back of a Chinese restaurant; from the new apartment he can see the front of a Chinese restaurant. The euphoria of new surroundings wears off quickly though, when Norton spends all morning in the bathtub while Ralph's waiting to bathe before going to work. When Ralph finally gets into the bathroom he takes a tumble on the soap Norton dropped on the floor and then can't get any hot water. Ralph tries to salvage his morning with a few waffles but Norton gets to them first, causing more friction. Things are no better that night; everything Norton does--eating, tapping on the table, cleaning his eyeglasses--drives Ralph crazy. Ralph tries to relax by reading the paper and listening to the radio, but Norton sends him into a frenzy by blasting the television. Soon Ralph and Norton, Trixie and Ralph, and Alice and Trixie are squabbling. The superintendent of the building comes down and kicks the blabbermouths from Bensonhurst out of the apartment house. | | | |
| 71 :03x21 - A Weighty Problem (Apr/16/1955) |
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A bus-company inspector gets on Ralph's bus and tells him he's getting too fat to drive a bus. Ralph goes home and checks a bus company height and weight chart, and discovers that for his height--six feet tall--he's four pounds under the maximum weight for a man his height. Later that night, with a clear mind, he goes to the monthly Raccoon Lodge banquet and eats up a storm. After the feast, one of the Raccoons bets Ralph that he's not six feet tall, and it turns out he's right--Ralph's only 5 feet 11 inches! A five-foot-eleven bus driver is supposed to weight 238 pounds, and Ralph weighed 246--before the banquet. Ralph immediately goes on a diet, and being deprived of food turns him into a monster. Two days before his bus-company physical he's about to go over the edge: even a crossword puzzle in which one of the answers is Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter drives him nuts. The next day, Mrs. Manicotti is having a surprise party for her husband, and she wants to hide the food for the party--a ham, a turkey, and the birthday cake--in the Kramdens' apartment. Alice thinks Ralph is going to spend the night working out at the gym, so she takes the food. Ralph comes home instead, and when he sees the food he thinks he's hallucinating. When he realizes it's real, a battle begins between his willpower and his appetite. | | | |
| 72 :03x22 - Principle of the Thing (Apr/30/1955) |
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The Kramdens' apartment is going to pot--the pipes leak, the walls are cracking, the sink won't work, doorknobs are falling off. Ralph is fed up, so he seeks out Shaughnessy, the neighborhood lawyer, who advises him to withhold his rent until the landlord makes repairs. Ralph decides to take the rent money and repair and redecorate the apartment himself. He buys a new bathtub, and wallpaper that is too gaudy even for Norton (Alice describes it as "early Halloween"). Ralph papers the apartment, but soon thereafter a painter comes in and undoes the damage. Finally comes the confrontation with the landlord. Ralph rails at him for being a cheapskate and a tightwad, and tells him that a clause in his lease allows him to withhold rent money and use it for repairs. The landlord tells Ralph that another clause in the lease allows the landlord to cancel the lease entirely, and that Ralph is now an ex-tenant. The landlord says he'll renew the lease if Ralph agrees to pay an additional fifteen dollars per month--a figure that reflects the increased value of the apartment now that Ralph has fixed it up | | Guest Stars: Jack Benny as Landlord | | | |
| 73 :03x23 - Songs and Witty Sayings (May/14/1955) |
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Ralph and Norton have entered the annual amateur night at the Halsey Theater, where the grand prize is two hundred dollars. Their act consists of a mind-reading bit, jokes and a Laurel and Hardy impersonation, and a song-and-dance routine. When Ralph comes home from work, he discovers he and Norton are going to have some stiff competition: Alice and Trixie are doing a hula song and dance. Ralph is against Alice's performing, but Norton is more understanding; Trixie had been in burlesque, he tells Ralph, and has the tradition of the theater to uphold. Alice knows Ralph is afraid she and Trixie may win, and she appeals to his pride. Ralph not only accepts her challenge but bets her ten dollars he and Norton will win and promises to eat her grass skirt if she and Trixie win. Ralph and Norton are up past midnight rehearsing, and Alice and Garrity, are anything but a captive audience. The "restaurant sketch" they rehearse, in which Norton does a Stan Laurel impersonation as a customer who wants a piece of custard pie, and Ralph plays the waiter a la Oliver Hardy, is a priceless tribute by Carney and Gleason to the two great funny men. At the Halsey, the first contestant is Freitag Delicatessen's delivery boy, who plays a bicycle pump. Alice and Trixie wow 'em. Norton can't even guess the first object in the mind-reading routine, Ralph bombs as a standup comic, and the song and dance is a dismal flop. | | | |
| 74 :03x24 - Boys and Girls Together (May/23/1955) |
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The Kramdens have new next-door neighbors--the Fallons, from Bayonne. Ralph welcomes the new guy by inviting him to join him and Norton for pool, bowling, and lodge meetings, but Fallon is busy all the nights Ralph and Norton go out together--he spends all those nights with his wife. Alice, who earlier had been stood up for a movie date with Ralph because he had to bowl with the Hurricanes, feels like a discarded dishrag next to Mrs. Fallon. Later, Trixie tells Alice that she read in a magazine that the reason men spend so much time apart from their wives is because the wives let themselves go and allow their marriages to become dull and predictable. The girls make a pact to bring romance back to Chauncey Street. When Ralph comes home the next night and finds the apartment lit by candlelight, his first reaction is to accuse Alice of forgetting to pay the electric bill. Alice is prepared though: fancy clothes, hugs and kisses, a bushel of compliments, a roast-beef dinner, and romantic music. Ralph reminds her that they're not Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, and it's all downhill from there. Soon each is pouring out fourteen years of frustration. Then Alice lays down the law: Ralph will be allowed out alone one night a week; any other night he goes out he has to take her with him. After four nights out with Alice, Ralph is invoking the Constitution and his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Alice and Trixie have said they want to spend time with their husbands but not spoil their fun, so Ralph figures the way for him and Norton to win back their freedom is to keep the girls out so late that they ask to go home, thus "spoiling" their husbands' night out and disqualifying themselves from participating in the boys' activities. Hours later--after pool, rowing boats, visiting Roseland and Coney Island, and bowling--the girls are invigorated and the boys are walking zombies. They stop in a restaurant and Ralph and Norton can't even stay awake. Half asleep, they wind up dancing together, and then fall asleep standing up. The girls give up trying to keep them awake, and ask to go home. | | | |
Season 4 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| 92 :04x18 - The $99,000 Answer (Jan/28/1956) | | Ralph goes on a quiz show. His category is Popular Songs. | | Guest Stars: Jay Jackson as Herb Norris, Zamah Cunningham as Mrs. Manicotti, George Petrie as Janitor, Frank Marth as George Petrie, Eddie Hanley as Charlie, John Griggs (1) as J.J. Marshall, Ronnie Burns as Wallace, Bill Zuckert as Mr. Garrity, Ethel Owen as Mrs. Gibson, Jack Davis (1) as Mr. Parker | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Season 5 |
| 114 :05x01 - Double Anniversary Party (Oct/13/1956) | | Alice is planning a surprise anniversary party for Ralph in the Nortons' apartment. Meanwile, Ralph is secretly planning to take Alice to the Kit Kat Club the same night. Ralph asks her if she wants to go to the movies but Alice says she would rather spend the night with the Nortons. Ralph tries to bully her into going but Alice refuses. Ralph gives in and tells her he wants to take her to a club. Alice tells him about the surprise party. They agree to go to the Nortons that night and to the club the next night. | | | |
| 115 :05x02 - Check Up (Oct/20/1956) | | Ralph is getting a promotion and a doctor from the bus company stops by to give him a physical. Ralph isn't home, so the doctor says that he'll stop by later. Alice and Trixie go out and tell Ed to stay in the apartment and wait for Ralph. When Ralph hears that a doctor is coming by, he thinks it's because Alice wants to increase his life insurance. Ralph wants no part of it so he decides to fake being a drunk so that he'll fail the physical and cancel the policy. The doctor is appalled at Ralph. Alice comes home and explains to Ralph who the doctor was. | | | |
| 116 :05x03 - Forgot to Register (Oct/27/1956) | | It's Harper vs. Penrose in a local election and Ralph and Norton are campaigning for Penrose. Norton is so involved that he dresses up like Uncle Sam and marches in a parade for Penrose. However, Norton says he's not going to vote because it's too much trouble. Ralph is appalled and delivers a speech about the Pilgrims. Then Ralph finds out that Alice is going to vote for Harper and gets into an argument with her. Ralph goes to the polls to vote for his man but finds out that he forgot to register. | | | |
| 117 :05x04 - Expectant Father (Nov/03/1956) | | Alice gets a job in an obstetrician's office to make some money for Christmas. One day, Ralph saw Alice and Trixie go into the doctor's office and he thinks that Alice is pregnant. Ralph goes home and tells Norton. Norton thinks that maybe it's Trixie who is pregnant. They both start dreaming about being fathers and Alice and Trixie walk in. Ralph tells Alice that he saw her go into the doctor's office and she thinks that Ralph knows she has a job. Alice sees that he doesn't mind and says that she's thinking of doing it every year. Ralph soon finds out the truth and is disappointed. | | | |
| 118 :05x05 - Goodnight Sweet Prince (Nov/10/1956) | | Ralph has been transferred to the night shift by Freddie Muller and he's finding it impossible to sleep during the day. Just as he's about to doze off, Norton barges in. Norton tries to help him sleep by stuffing his ears with cotton and blindfolding him. Norton leads Ralph to the bedroom but lets go of him and he stumbles to the ground. Norton gets thrown out and Ralph goes into the bedroom. Freddie Muller comes by and tells Alice that he's putting Ralph back on the day shift. Alice calls Ralph to tell him and Ralph comes out of the bedroom screaming at her for disturbing him. Ralph doesn't see Freddie by the door and starts blaming him for all his misery. Freddie is insulted and promises to keep Ralph on the night shift forever. | | | |
| 119 :05x06 - Two-Family Car (Nov/17/1956) | | Ralph gets a telegram saying he's won a prize in a raffle. He assumes it's the grand prize-a new car. He tells Alice that he couldn't have bought the ticket if he wasn't able to talk Norton into giving him twenty-five cents. Alice tells Ralph that this makes Norton half owner and Ralph has a fit. Ralph tries to cheat Norton by offering to pay back the twenty-five cents. Ralph and Norton begin to fight over who is going to use the car that weekend until the man from the raffle arrives with the prize. While Ralph, Ed, and Alice look out the window for the new car, the man presents them with their real prize... a turkey. | | | |
| 120 :05x07 - Love Letter (Nov/24/1956) |
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Alice borrows a cookbook from Trixie and in it finds a love letter that Ed once wrote to Trixie. Alice leaves it on the icebox and Ralph later finds it. Ralph thinks that Alice is seeing another man. He and Norton try to figure out who wrote it. Norton thinks the handwriting looks familiar but can't figure out who wrote it. The boys take the letter to an analyst and she tells them that the man who wrote it is the romantic type but that he is also not too bright, rude and disorderly. She asks them to leave the letter with her and that she is going to analyze it further and mail Ralph the results. Ralph doesn't want Alice to know so Norton offers to have it sent to his house and writes down the address. The analyst notices that the handwriting is the same and calls in Ralph in private to tell him that Norton wrote the letter. Ralph doesn't let on to Norton. Alice asks Norton to go with her to pick out a bowling ball as a present to Ralph. Ralph sees them leave together and now has more evidence. Ralph goes upstairs and tells Trixie. As he's reading the letter to her, Norton walks in and hears Ralph saying "I love you, I love you, I love you." Norton challenges Ralph to a fight and Ralph socks him one in the gut. Alice gives the bowling ball to Ralph and explains the whole thing. Ralph apologizes to everyone. | | | |
| 121 :05x08 - Finders Keepers (Dec/08/1956) |
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Mr. Bartfeld is selling his candy store to the Chock Full O'Orange people. When Ralph hears this he figures the CFOO people must know something about a boom in the neighborhood, and he wants to buy the store. He and Norton form a partnership and agree to invest $300 each to buy it. When neither of them can get the money, they try to think of a scheme to get it. Norton turns on the radio and they hear a commercial for a find-the-missing-money contest. The prize is a $1,000 bill. They study the clues and decide that the money is hidden in an automat across from Grand Central Station. They go there and search everywhere but don't find the money. They end up getting arrested for creating a disturbance in the automat. When Ralph gets home, he finds out that the CFOO people want to buy the store not because they think it would make alot of money, but to use it as a warehouse. Ralph is relieved that he didn't buy the store, but he is upset because not only did he lose a day's pay, but he also had to pay Joe Cassidy $15 to drive his bus while he was out looking for the money. | | | |
| 122 :05x09 - Catch a Star (Dec/15/1956) | | The Racoon Lodge is holding a dance benefit and the lodge brothers suggest getting a big name celebrity to attend. Norton recalls that Ralph had told him that he new Jackie Gleason. So the racoons now insist that Ralph go after booking Gleason for the benefit. | | | |
| 123 :05x10 - My Fair Landlord (Jan/19/1957) | | Ralph, fed up with things always breaking down in the apartment, buys a new house in Queens. Ralph draws up a 99 year lease for the Nortons. After a while Norton hates the arrangements and tries to get himself evicte | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| 127 :05x14 - When In Rome (Feb/23/1957) | | In Italy: Ralph is jealous of Alice's guide, not knowing the guide is a little boy. Harry Verderchi. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| 132 :05x19 - Manager of the Baseball Team (Jun/01/1957) | | Ralph believes he is going to be appointed manager of the Gotham Bus Company. When a letter arrives with the news, it turns out Ralph has been named manager of the Gotham Company's baseball team. | | | |
Season 6 |
| 132 :06x01 - Two Below (Sep/29/1962) | | Ralph convinces Ed to get more involved in civil defense and spend a week in the basement instead of vacationing with Alice & Trixie in Atlantic City. Once in the basement, hilarity ensues when Ralph & Ed try to sleep in bunk beds. | | | | | | |
| 134 :06x03 - The Adoption (Jan/08/1963) | | Anxious to adopt a baby, Ralph and Alice go to great lengths to impress the adoption agency -- even passing off expensive borrowed furniture as their own. Touched by the Kramdens' honesty, arrangements are made to locate a child for them. Ralph errupts when the baby turns out tto be a "Ralphina" but the Kramden's happiness is short-lived when the birth mother wants her baby back. | | | |
Season 7 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| 144 :07x10 - Run, Santa, Run (Dec/17/1966) | | Ralph doesn't know that Alice has taken in knitting to pay for his Christmas present, so when he discovers baby things in the apartment he assumes Alice is pregnant. He takes on a job as a sidewalk santa with Norton as his helper. They are both arrested as opperatives in a bookmaking operation. | | Guest Stars: Martin Garner as Lenny, Robert Strauss as Sydney | | | | | | |
| 146 :07x12 - Movies Are Better Than Ever (Jan/14/1967) | | Ralph treats himself, Alice and the Nortons to the movies for Ed's birthday. Ed's ticket wins the door prize -- a color TV. Ralph declares war on Ed because he paid for the tickets and wants the TV. Eventually they take their case to court but reconcile after hearing Alice's testimony. | | | |
| 147 :07x13 - Without Reservations (Feb/04/1967) | | Ralph's brother-in-law Stanley pursuades Ralph and Ed into buying a strategically located hotel along the route of a proposed highway. The highway ends up bypassing the hotel, putting Ralph and Ed out of business but money in Stanley's pocket since he's a construction worker on the new highway. | | Guest Stars: Robert Dryden as , Pat Henning as Stanley | | | | | | |
| 149 :07x15 - Rififi, Brooklyn Style (Mar/04/1967) | | Ralph tries to score points with his boss by collecting money from the drivers at the depot and buying the boss' daughter an elegant watch as a wedding present. Alics and her mother discover the watch and since it's Alice's birthday, jump to the wrong conclusion. Ralph stages a phony holdup to get the watch back but is thwarted when a real crook overhears his scheme. | | Guest Stars: Pert Kelton as Mrs. Gibson | | | |
| 150 :07x16 - Ralph Kramden Presents (Mar/18/1967) | Ralph is asked to invite his celebrity friend that he always brags about, Jackie Gleason, to the annual Raccoons dance. In desperation, Ralph & Ed go over to the hotel that Gleason is staying to try to get him to come. Ralph gets to speak to Carney and Ed gets to speak to Gleason but in the confusion, nobody is invited to the dance. Alice promises Gleason the recipe for her anchovy pizza and he shows up at the dance.
| | Guest Stars: Sammy Smith (3) as , George Petrie as Hotel Desk Clerk, Robert Dryden as Rocky | | | |
| 151 :07x17 - Flushing Ho (Apr/11/1967) | | The Kramdens and Nortons, unable to make ends meet around tax time, decide to move to a large two-bedroom apartment in Flushing and split all expenses. The plan fails when Ralph complains of a dwindling food supply and insufficient time in the bathroom, so they all pack up and move back to Chauncey Street. | | Guest Stars: Paul Brown (1) as , Franklin Cover as Police Officer, Robert Dryden as , Ted Beniades as | | | |
| 152 :07x18 - Sees All, Knows All (Apr/22/1967) | | A Coney Island fortune teller tells Ralph that he is going to commit a murder within a week. Ralph wants Alice to move in with her mother till the week passes but Alice refuses. Ralph moves in with Ed and gets so exasperated at him that he nearly kills him. In the end, Ralph manages to get himself arrested for safety by assaulting a police officer | | Guest Stars: William Thourlby as , Chet London as Gypsy, Audrey Christie as Madame Zelda, Paul Brown (1) as | | | |
Season 8 |
| 153 :08x01 - Be It Ever So Humble (Sep/09/1967) | | Rather than pay a $5 rent increase, Ralph buys a duplex in the country and takes the Nortons as his tenants. He forces them to sign a 99-year lease. But he is a negligent superintendent, and the Nortons attempt to break the lease with a 3:00 A.M. party and a firecracker in Ralph's fireplace. | | Guest Stars: Franklin Cover as Police Officer, George Petrie as Mr. Cogliati | | | |
| 154 :08x02 - Hair to a Fortune (Sep/16/1967) | | For $500, Ralph and Norton buy a phony hair-restoration formula from a sharp promoter in Central Park. Over Alice and Trixie's objections, they mix up their first batch and try it on Ralph's boss. Using the formula he loses all his hair. | | Guest Stars: Gordon B. Clarke as , George Petrie as Electric Zipper Inventor, Ben Hammer as Mr. Mitchell | | | |
| 155 :08x03 - The People's Choice (Sep/23/1967) | | Ralph becomes a hero for recognizing "Knuckles" Grogan from his newspaper picture and aiding in his arrest. Then Knuckles escapes, and Ralph has to be the bait so the police can recapture him. Local politicians ask Ralph, on the strength of his heroism, to run for state assembly; he agrees, and campaigns vigorously, until he realizes that his sponsors are dishonest. And, at the big pre-election rally, he tells the voters the whole story. | | Guest Stars: Ted Beniades as Political Boss, Joseph Warren as Pomerantz, Howard St. John as Weaver | | | |
| 156 :08x04 - Two for the Money (Oct/07/1967) | | Ralph, as treasurer of the Raccoon Lodge, has been entrusted with $500 in cash, which he loses at Dennehy's Bar, He plays a long shot at the tracks to replace the money, and his horse wins but he doesn't, because he tore up his ticket at the beginning of the race when it looked like he was going to lose. Fortunately, the money turns up right where Ralph left it--in the pocket of the Raccoons' Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler. | | Guest Stars: Johnny Morgan (1) as Bartender | | | |
| 157 :08x05 - Nephew of the Bride (Oct/21/1967) | | Alice's Aunt Ethel (played by Doro Merande) moves in with the Kramdens. Ralph, who has to sleep on a cot in the kitchen, plays Cupid for her and Krausmeyer, the butcher (played by David Burns). His plan succeeds, Ethel and Krausmeyer elope, and they return to the Kramdens' for a place to live until they can find a home. And Ralph moves to the YMCA | | Guest Stars: David Burns (2) as Herman Krausmeyer, Doro Merande as Aunt Ethel | | | |
| 158 :08x06 - Out of Sight, Out of Mind (Nov/04/1967) | | Ralph is sent to the company psychiatrist when he loses his temper once too often on the job. He is advised to give up his friendship with Norton, Norton mistakes his farewell note for a suicide note, and shadows Ralph to keep him out of trouble. Ralph, seeing Norton everywhere he looks, thinks he's losing his mind ... until the truth comes out and the psychiatrist decides that Norton and Kramden belong together. | | Guest Stars: Bruce Gordon (1) as Bugsy, Barbara Nichols as Kitty, Robert Strauss as Harry | | | |
| 159 :08x07 - Two Faces of Ralph Kramden (Nov/18/1967) | | Ralph is set up as an "insurance executive" by mobsters because he is a dead ringer for their boss (also played by Gleason). Their real boss is fleeing the country with his moll; Ralph, as his stand-in, is due to be exterminated momentarily. Only the intervention of Norton, Alice, and Trixie saves Ralph's life. | | | |
| 160 :08x08 - The Main Event (Dec/02/1967) | | Boxer "Dynamite" Moran is living with the Kramdens and Ralph is his new promoter. His first knockout, strictly unofficial and off the record, is staged for the benefit of the manager of heavyweight contender "Killer" Cuoco. The scheme works until Norton accidentally decks Dynamite. Undaunted, Ralph vows to stay in the fight game. Only this time, he will train Norton for the ring. | | Guest Stars: Dick Sabol as Killer Cuoco, Betty Hyatt Linton as , Jesse White as Bob Cosgrove, George Petrie as Maitre d', Peter Palmer as Dynamite Moran | | | |
| 161 :08x09 - To Whom It May Concern (Dec/16/1967) | | Ralph, told to turn in his bus driver's uniform, dashes off a scathing letter to his boss, only to realize he was not being fired but promoted to traffic manager. He retrieves the letter, then mails it again by mistake. His boss receives the letter, but has no one to blame, since it is unsigned. Then Norton stops by the boss' office to plead for another chance for his pal . . . and Ralph's professional aspirations take another nose dive. | | Guest Stars: Paul Ford as J.J. Marshall | | | |
Season 9 |
| 162 :09x01 - Sleepy Time Girl (Sep/28/1968) | | Ralph meets a hypnotist, the Great Fatchoomara, at the Raccoon Lodge, and persuades him to put Alice in a trance. That way, she will have to show Ralph where she hides her emergency cash. Unfortunately for Ralph, Alice overhears his scheme and substitutes a Eot-4'0u-this-time note for the money. He doesn't realize until too late, on a train to the Miami Beach Raccoons' Annual Convention, that Alice was wise to him all along. | | Guest Stars: George Petrie as , Greg Mullavy as Businessman, Jack Good (1) as , Robert Dryden as , Richard Deacon as The Great Fatchoomara | | | |
| 163 :09x02 - The Boy Next Door (Oct/12/1968) | | Alice, planning a surprise birthday party for Ralph, borrows a cookbook recipe from Trixie. Ralph, discovering the cookbook, finds in it an old love letter written by Ed. He concludes that Ed and Alice are lovers and takes the appropriate actions: following them and telling Trixie. But Trixie just laughs at Ralph, then she tells him the truth. | | Guest Stars: Kim Hunter as Miss Patterson | | | |
| 164 :09x03 - Follow the Boys (Oct/26/1968) | | When the wives complain that their husbands don't fuss over them anymore, Ralph and Ed come up with a compromise: one night a week will be "boys' night out," the other nights they will spend with Alice and Trixie. But this is just another scheme that backfires on Ralph, who is planning to wear out the wives on the first night, but overcomes himself with exhaustion instead. | | Guest Stars: Paul Brown (1) as Waiter, Johnny Morgan (1) as Harry Fallon, Martha Greenhouse as Mrs. Fallon | | | |
| 165 :09x04 - Six Months to Live (Nov/23/1968) | | When Ralph is always tired, he goes to the doctor. Alice brings her mother's dog to the vet, but doesn't want Ralph to know because it cost him $9. The vet sends over a letter about the dog's impending doom, and Ralph thinks the note is meant for him. Not having anything to bequeath to Alice, he and Norton decide to sell Ralph's story to a magazine. They decide to do a full feature on him, and he then figures out that he's not dying. He and Norton concoct a scheme of Norton being the only doctor in the world that can cure Ralph, but they get caught. Luckily, the magazine editor likes the real story better and doesn't press charges. | | | |
| 166 :09x05 - Alice's Birthday (Dec/07/1968) | | This year Alice is determined to receive a birthday gift from chronically forgetful Ralph even if she has to buy it herself, which she does. But she's not home when the present is delivered and Ralph, who signs for it, is sure she has a mysterious suitor. | | | |
| 167 :09x06 - Lawsuit (Jan/04/1969) | | Against Alice's advice, Ralph, who has broken his leg in a bus accident, is suing the Gotham Bus Company for $75,000. The lawyer thinks he has a good case until he learns that Ralph was driving the bus when the accident occurred | | | | | | | | | |
| 170 :09x09 - Norton Moves In (Apr/05/1969) | | Norton moves in with the Kramdens because his apartment smells of paint . . . until Ralph, who is going crazy from sharing a cot with Norton, throws paint all over his own place to drive Norton out. | | | |
| 171 :09x10 - The New Manager (Apr/19/1969) | | Ralph thinks he's appointed manager of the bus company, when in fact it's actually the company's soft ball team. | | | |
Season 10 |
| The Second Honeymoon (Feb/02/1976) | | This episode celebrated the 25th anniversary of the show, therefore appropriately, so were the Kramdens. Ralph and Alice are going to celebrate their 25th anniversary with a second ceremony to be conducted by none other than the Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler himself at the Raccoon Lodge. Along the way Ralph jumps to the conclusion that Alice is pregnant -- she even confesses that another member of the family is on the way. In the end, Ralph learns that Alice is indeed expecting... her mother. So Ralph ends up spending the night of their anniversary sleeping in the kitchen because Alices mother is going to sleep in the bedroom with Alice. | | | |
| The Honeymooners Christmas Special (Nov/28/1977) | | Ralph and Alice are planning to go to Miami on vacation and Ralph is bragging about it in the depot locker room. Along comes his boss and asks Ralph to direct a show (A Christmas Carol) for the benefit of his wife's charity -- finding homes for stray cats. Ralph volunteers himself for the positions of director, writer, and star. Alice being disappointed in the change in plans makes Ralph sleep in the kitchen on a broken cot. The play itself features Ralph, Alice, Trixie, and Ed. Ed plays the roll of both Scrooge and Tiny Tim, but he keeps getting the mannerisms and wigs mixed up. For the grand finale, the cornflakes that Alice and Trixie painted to look like snowflakes descend on the cast in one incredible thud. Ralph's boss is so impressed that he gives Ralph a reward for his efforts -- a pregnant cat. Also, at long last, Ralph is finally promoted to traffic manager. | | | |
| The Honeymooners Valentine Special (Feb/13/1978) | | With another anniversary coming up, Ralph and Alice are planning to buy wonderful surprise presents for each other. Ralph is going to buy an all-electric kitchen, a color TV, and a stereo system on credit. Alice is going to buy Ralph a custom-tailored suit with the money she earns working behind Ralph's back for an answering service. When Ralph comes across a list of answering-service calls that Alice has hidden, he jumps to the conclusion that she's seeing another man and plotting to do away with Ralph because there are messages about druggists and cemeteries, and because there are an abundance of calls for one man, Armand -- who is a professional escort. To expose Alice's infidelity, Ralph and Ed dress up as women and invite Armand to the apartment. In the meantime, Alice is trying to measure Ralph for the suit without him knowing it. Ralph thinks she's trying to measure him for a coffin. When Armand arrives, he develops a crush on Ed. Then Alice arrives and explains everything. Ed is disappointed because now Armand doesn't want to take him to the movies. Ralph is disappointed too because his surprise kitchen overloads the circuits and explodes the first time he tries to demonstrate it. | | | | | | |
| 172 :10x01 - Play It Again, Norton (Sep/27/1969) | | The Honeymooners wreck havoc on a cross-country tour. Our two willing but not-so-able boobs (Ralph & Ed) enter a song contest sponsored by movie star Washington Kenmore (played by Paul Lynde). The prize: $25,000 and a Hollywood trip. The problem: entrants must be under 18. | | Guest Stars: Peter Gladke as , Jeremiah Morris as , Dick Lynn as , Paul Lynde as Himself | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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